Paul Keating will never agree but the merger rationale for the two businesses – now one – is obvious in the stark figures from the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission. These demonstrate the extent to which the former business models and ad revenues of traditional media companies have been decimated by the spectacular growth of digital platforms.

The result is that for every $100 spent by advertisers in Australia, $47 now goes to Google and $21 goes to Facebook, leaving a desperate scramble for the much-diminished remainder available to former media titans.

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One strategy in adapting to this not-so-brave new world is for the nation's commercial players in traditional print and TV businesses to build on their greater combined size and leverage in order to try to compete against increasingly overwhelming forces in what has become a global battle.

Again the ACCC numbers tell the real news story of the past few years.

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Every month, approximately 19 million Australians use Google Search, 17 million access Facebook, 17 million watch YouTube (owned by Google) and 11 million access Instagram (owned by Facebook). But the influence of these consumer magnets over the rest of the media extends much beyond that. Approximately 50 per cent of traffic to Australian news media websites now comes from Google or Facebook, for example.

Substantial market power

As the ACCC preliminary report states, the significance of referral traffic from Google and Facebook has provided these digital platforms with a substantial degree of market power in terms of news media referral services.

In contrast, the ACCC points out that while digital platforms clearly value the news media content they can display, "Google and Facebook each appear to be more important to the major news media businesses than any one news media business is to Google or Facebook".

"At the same time digital platforms have obtained a significant and increasing share of online advertising expenditure, traditional print media (now print/online media) have suffered a significant decline in advertising revenue," the report says. "The reduction in advertising revenue has made it difficult for print/online media to monetise their content."

Making money from content certainly gets harder when print advertising has fallen from $5.7 billion to $1.9 billion from 2005 to 2017 while digital advertising, so dominated by Facebook and Google, increased from $1 billion to $8 billion over the same period, representing 50 per cent of all advertising dollars.

Sims argues that maintaining traditional investigative journalism is a "public good" and its decline a critical issue for any government and community to consider given the increasing power of global digital platforms.

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Important questions

"While the ACCC recognises their significant benefits to consumers and businesses, there are important questions to be asked about the role the global digital platforms play in the supply of news and journalism in Australia, what responsibility they should hold as gateways to information and business, and the extent to which they should be accountable for their influence," the report states.

"In particular, this report identifies concerns with the ability and incentive of key digital platforms to favour their own business interests, through their market power and presence across multiple markets, the digital platforms' impact on the ability of content creators to monetise their content, and the lack of transparency in digital platforms' operations for advertisers, media businesses and consumers."

That includes protecting the rights of consumers to better understand and have greater control over access to the massive amounts of data being collected from them. The ACCC is also arguing for greater transparency in the operation of Google and Facebook's key algorithms, including the ranking of news stories and ads.

But identifying concerns is always much easier than identifying solutions – particularly in such a complex and fast-changing arena.

It's why Sims emphasises that this report and its recommendations are preliminary – part of an effort to engage the community and the media before the ACCC comes up with its final recommendations next June.

Unlike some of his regulatory peers, Sims will never be accused of being "inactive" or overly cautious in his demands for change across a vast range of political and commercial interests. Witness a simultaneous ACCC announcement on Monday that it was launching legal action against the NSW Coalition government's $5.1 billion sale of NSW ports including terms that were "anti-competitive and illegal".

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More appealing

So Sims concedes the concept of greater government involvement in media and social media is "tricky" but more appealing than the alternative of leaving it to the digital platforms to make their own judgments about their massive power, data and influence.

As well as increased penalties for breaches, tougher tests for mergers and greater regulatory oversight of the platforms in their advertising and distribution of news, Sims is flagging possible additional protection for the print/online media. This would extend beyond the current level of taxpayer funding for the ABC and subsidised spectrum for TV and radio.

It includes proposals such as allowing tax offsets for costs incurred by news media in producing particular types of journalism of "high public benefit" or making personal subscriptions tax deductible for publications and businesses that are signatories to a registered code of practice.

He is obviously worried about the potential spread of fake news and "filter bubbles", suggesting the ACCC is considering ways of improving transparency about the source and reliability of news stories on digital platforms. Trust does have real value.

As he says, Google and Facebook have enormous power over what Australians see – and don't see – as well as the quality of what they see. Good luck!

ACCC chairman Rod Sims arrives to speak to the media ... he is obviously worried about the potential spread of fake news and "filter bubbles". Peter Rae

Every month, approximately 19 million Australians use Google Search, 17 million access Facebook, 17 million watch YouTube (owned by Google) and 11 million access Instagram (owned by Facebook). Dado Ruvic